With more than seven decades of trailblazing work that has profoundly influenced contemporary dance, Lucinda Childs remains a vital force in shaping its evolution. Gibney Company has unveiled a groundbreaking five-year artistic partnership, appointing Childs as Resident Choreographer from 2026 through 2030. This rare long-term residency is rooted in continuity, rigor, and inquiry.
The collaboration extends an already significant artistic connection. In 2025, Childs created the acclaimed Three Dances for Gibney Company, which debuted to widespread praise during the Company’s season at The Joyce Theater. This April, the Company will further integrate Childs’ repertoire by adding her luminous balletic quartet Canto Ostinato, choreographed in 2015 to Simeon ten Holt’s hypnotic score, to its repertory at the Joyce, strengthening its commitment to her visionary body of work.
Spanning 2026–2030, the residency also establishes an extended artistic home for Childs at Gibney. Rather than a single commission or short-term engagement, the partnership allows meaningful work to emerge over time, grounded in shared artistic values of clarity, depth, and precision, and shaped by process rather than immediacy. Throughout the five-year relationship, Childs will continue developing new work with Gibney Company, allowing ideas to unfold on her own artistic timeline and in conversation with the Company’s mission and evolving repertory.
At 85, she remains deeply engaged in the studio, continuing to create, question, and expand her practice in dialogue with the dancers.Gibney will also provide space and support for Childs’ broader artistic practice, including projects with her own company and other commissions, in close proximity to Gibney Company and the Center’s artistic community, fostering ongoing exchange across generations, practices, and disciplines.
Looking ahead, Childs will begin developing a new full-length work in 2026, with a premiere planned for 2027. The work will honor a milestone birthday of one of Childs’ most enduring musical collaborators, continuing her decades-long dialogue between choreography and music.
In response to the interests of the dance community and emerging artistic questions, Gibney and Childs will also explore select opportunities for engagement and knowledge-sharing, including conversations, open rehearsals, and exchanges with artists, deepening access to Childs’ work and thinking while remaining grounded in the creative process.
“I’m very pleased to be joining the Gibney Company as Resident Choreographer,” notes Childs. “I worked with them for the first time in 2025 when I made Three Dances to John Cage’s 1945 piece for two prepared pianos. This year they will perform Canto Ostinato, which I choreographed in 2015 to a work by the Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, and in 2026, I will make a full-length work to premiere the following year. Gina Gibney has been welcoming and open and truly supportive of my work,” she continues. “I have collaborated with many companies over the years, most of them in Europe, and I’m grateful to have an opportunity to work here in the city with a company of such outstanding professional qualifications.”
“Lucinda Childs is an artist whose work continues to open space—for precision, rigor, and deep listening,” adds Gina Gibney, Founder and Artistic Director of Gibney. “After working together on Three Dances, it became clear that this was a relationship worth investing in over time, and with intention. This partnership reflects a shared commitment to depth rather than immediacy and gives our dancers and community sustained access to one of the great choreographic voices of our time.”
“Working with Lucinda last season was a profound experience for the Company,” reflects Gilbert T. Small II, the Company’s Director. “I watched our dancers be stretched, challenged, and deeply fulfilled by her clarity and precision in the studio. Lucinda’s legacy is extraordinary, but what’s most striking is how much she continues to offer as an artist—how present, curious, and exacting she is in the work. This partnership feels like a natural next step, and an incredibly exciting one, for the dancers and for the future of the Company.”
Childs will be back in the studio with Gibney Company next week to begin staging Canto Ostinato, which will be performed as part of the Company’s upcoming Joyce Theater season, April 7–12.
Visit https://gibneydance.org/ to learn more.
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